Skip to main content

Swans on Lake Charlotte

The first Trumpeter Swans that I ever saw in this area were on Lake Charlotte south of Long Prairie. It was twenty years ago. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d never seen such magnificent creatures. I’d never dreamed I’d see Trumpeter Swans on Lake Charlotte or any other lake.

When I was a kid I heard that Trumpeter Swans were nearly extinct. They could be counted in the dozens and weren’t long for this world. Then, as a young adult, I read E.B. White’s delightful story The Trumpet of the Swan. The message was the same: Trumpeter Swans were highly endangered and only hung on in remote northern locations and in inaccessible locations in the western mountains.

Swans on Lake Charlotte
Photo by Sue Farmer


Since that first sighting on Lake Charlotte I’ve had numerous and wonderful encounters with Trumpeters. A flock blessed me by flying over my head at tree top level. The rush of their magnificent wings nearly lifted me off my feet. I came across a pair while camping at the hike in lakes at Itasca Park. And for the past two summers a pair has nested on a beaver lodge in a pond up the road.

The return of the Trumpeters from the brink of extinction is partly due to the wonderful resilience of the species. But it’s also due to the fact that we humans made a choice. We decided that the swans were worth saving. Then talented and dedicated biologists and administrators in state and federal agencies, using the best science, brought them back to the point that Trumpeter Swans are now thriving.

The same is true of the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, and the Sandhill Crane. There was no profit in it. But we as a people made a choice to invest the resources to preserve a species.

Every time I see a Bald Eagle or hear a Sandhill Crane I think how lucky I am to be on earth with them. And I once again thank the citizens, politician, scientists, public regulators, and administrators that had the vision and courage to make sure that it was so.

We must fight those who think that if a swan cannot profit the shareholders of a distant corporation it is just in the way. We must do all we can to be sure swans will be landing on Lake Charlotte for generations to come. We must continue to make the right choices.


You can read about the return of the Trumpeter Swans here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Senator Gazelka: Prepare for End Times

Review by John King “Marketplace Ministers are part of how the Lord will reach the peoples of the earth in these last days.” Author Paul Gazelka wrote this astonishing sentence near the conclusion of his 2003 book, Marketplace Ministers , but it is a good place to start here because it so neatly encapsulates the message of the book which is that business people, by spreading the Gospel, are in a unique position to prepare us, for the end of the world.   Gazelka, an insurance salesman in Baxter, Minnesota, devotes chapters one through four to the story of his religious calling and how he came to adopt the “marketplace” as his personal ministry.  He goes to some length, relying in part on the “Fivefold Path” from Ephesians to convince the reader that the marketplace is a legitimate pulpit to spread the Word.  The remainder of the book, using personal anecdotes and biblical passages, he explains how a marketplace ministry would function and what its usefulness w...
3 comments
Read more

70 years of regenerative and organic research

This was published in The Land earlier this year. - Tim By Tim King The Land Correspondent Kutztown, PA, Rodale Institute, which is headquartered on its seventy year old 333 acre research and education farm near here, has opened its Organic Crop Consulting Services based at its Rodale Institute Midwest Organic Center near Marion Iowa. The Land talked to Dr. Andrew Smith, Rodale’s Chief Scientist and Chief Operating Officer, about Rodale’s expanded services in Iowa and about organic and regenerative agriculture in general. Smith is a former organic farmer and Peace Corps volunteer. The Land: Can you tell me about the Rodale Institute? Smith: We are a nonprofit research and education institution, in operation since 1947, headquartered on our farm near Kutztown Pennsylvania. We also operate six other sites in Pennsylvania, Iowa, Georgia, and California. Rodale Institute aims to grow the regenerative organic movement through research, farmer training, and consumer education. On our si...
Post a Comment
Read more

Let us all walk in the foot steps of John Lewis

By John King In Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, John Lewis, standing in the lead of a long line of marchers, looked down from the crest of The Edmund Pettus Bridge at the line of police armed with clubs, whips and truncheons and said, “I am going to die here.” Lewis intended to lead the marchers from Selma to the capital Montgomery, to demand access to voting for Black people in Alabama. Sheriff Jim Clark lowered his gas mask and led the deputies, some on horseback and some on foot, into the line of marchers. Under swinging clubs and hooves trampling, Lewis was the first to go down. Women and children were not spared. Choking and blinded by tear gas, they were struck by clubs and truncheons wrapped with barbed wire. Lewis, with a fractured skull and a severe concussion, almost did die. The nearby Good Samaritan Hospital did not have enough beds to care for the injured marchers. A nation watched in horror as news footage of that bloody day appeared on T...
2 comments
Read more